Stonehell: Sparks and Bubbles

Session 243 was played on 2/25/24

Morgana, Magic User (Rob)
Borumar, ½ Orc Thief (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter (Lanse)
Koltic, Cleric 7 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 5 (NPC)
Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)

The party returned to the main hall to check the side passages near the entrance. Heading east, they enter a large chamber with glowing pillars, and faint lavender sparks that flash briefly all around the room. A pair of the floating eyes approach the party from behind, but Morgana ice storms them. Borumar cautiously checks out the room and the lavender sparks, but they don’t seem to do anything. The rest of the party cautiously checks out the room, then heads to the door to the south.

Opening the door they find an octagonal room with 4 pillars surrounding a 10’ diameter… soap bubble. Everyone hangs back with the lavender sparks while Borumar checks it out. He doesn’t find any traps, can’t wrap a rope around it. Shooting an arrow through it doesn’t do anything.

Morgana even tries to mentally move the bubble, but it has no effect.

Gains:
Kills:  floating eyes
Losses:

July ‘24 In Review

At the very end of the month, we added a new member of the family. Welcome Tasha! She’s about 3 years old, and while not a puppy, she’s full of energy and seems to be settling in nicely. 

We’ve also been dog sitting a friend's dog all month, so it’s been a nice chance to get back into the swing of having a dog. It is something of an adjustment having to deal with a dog that can reach the counter top… She’s only semi-trained, so there’s work to do on everyone’s part.

Gaming
We paused the Stonehell/Rappan game for most of the month as Rob was out of town, and gamewise it didn’t make sense to continue, so instead I ran Another Bug Hunt for Mothership horror RPG. It’s the first time running anything but D&D in forever, and it was nice. It’s a fun, relatively rules lite system. Not sure I managed to bring the horror, but my players had fun.

My work D&D game is getting going. Always hard to get people together in the summer with vacations and all, but I’ve had 2 solid sessions, mostly in the keep, and am looking forward to them visiting the caves again next session.

Miniatures
A frustrating month. I spent too much time trying to paint some Fristgrave forest bandit minis (aka Robin Hood types) and having the worst time of it. The white primer I used trying to zenithal highlight it ended up being super dusty, and nothing would stick. Eventually (and this took far too long) I gave them and a bunch of other minis that I’d primed at the same time a bath in isopropyl alcohol and a good scrub with my craft toothbrush. Things went a lot easier after that. Then I switched gears and knocked out half a dozen Blood Demons from Reaper. 

I’ve got a wide selection of minis ready to go on my desk right now, and no idea what it is I’ll really focus on next.


Media
Resident Alien
Letterkenny
Star Wars Acolyte
Star Trek Prodigy season 2

Goals for August
Play scenario 3 for Hope Eternal
Try to get at least 2 session reports written per week.

Making Mirkwood Trees for your tabletop games

I decided a while back that what I desperately needed for my game board is enough trees to make a forest. This was a silly thought as I haven't played a tabletop game in months. Nevertheless I decided to embark on this project, and so watched a whole bunch of YouTube videos, and dug through my terrain making books, and settled on making them with aluminum foil. This decision was based in part on the fact that it was a material I had plenty of, was cheap, and easy to work with. 

Then I needed to figure out how many trees to make. I set up my playing space and pulled out my 2" bases. It took about 18 to convincingly fill a 3*3 play area. 

The final decision at this point was to decide how tall I wanted the trees. Using Sir Forscale, I settled on a 4 to 6 inch range to make the trees feel big enough, but not so large that they would totally dominate the board even if there were just a few. 

 

Please note there is nothing in this tutorial that can't be found elsewhere, but this has the advantage of not being a video!

It was time to start making the trees. I pulled out sheets of foil and started wrapping. 

 

I started with about a 14-16 inch long piece of foil, which I then folded...

  

 

And started wrapping. Why 14-16 inches? Because as I twist the foil, it gets smaller, so that by the time I'm done the tree fits in the 4-6 inch total height that I was looking for.

 

 

Then I'd take another sheet and wrap it around the first to bulk up the trunk, and start to make the branches (not pictured). I then used hot glue to stick it to a 2" base. Sometimes I'd stick the second sheet of foil in the folds of the main trunk before I did the wrapping. Honestly, there was a lot of experimentation in making these, which resulted in a lot of different tree shapes. 

The nice thing about working with foil like this, is that if a spot needed bulking out, or filled in, or whatever, it was easy enough to take an extra bit of foil and wrap, stuff, and glue it where it needed to go.

 

 

I then took a sheet of foil and made one long roll, and cut it into small pieces to serve as roots, and glued them to the trees and bases.  Some roots were small, but I made some really twisty and large. After that, I used the glue gun to put a layer of hot glue all over the trees, both to seal the foil and to make some texture. I missed some spots, and others ended up smoother than I'd have liked, but the variety makes for a more interesting, and even more realistic set of trees. 

 

 

Then it was time to paint. I mixed black craft paint with Mod Podge and gave every tree a thick coat. Then I went back and gave them a second coat, cause some spots didn't cover the first time. 

 

 

Then I realized I forgot to texture the bases. So I did that, using a mix of sand and gravel. Then painted the bases with the same mod podge and paint mix. If I am ever to add more trees to my forest, or make another one, I'll remember to add the ground cover before I prime them.

 

 

Then it was time to add some real color. I started with a heavy brush of craft smart (Michaels brand) chocolate brown, followed by a nutmeg brown, and then a dry brush of antique white.  

 

 

You'll note I didn't make any smaller branches. My initial plan was to add foliage to these trees, so I only needed the main branches to hold it. You'd never see the smaller ones. 

 

But once I was done, I started to think that they look good like this. And maybe they'd work better as dead spooky mirkwood style trees. While I was still deciding on the foliage, I used some green and purple paints to splotch on some color. and gave the trees another final dry brush of the antique white. The green and purple are only a little noticeable if you're really looking for it, but it adds some more visual depth to the trees that made the effort worth it.

 

You have to admit this looks pretty good. The bark texture is way overstated and looks delightfully diseased. This is not a healthy forest by any stretch of the imagination.

The trees are wonderfully flexible. I can dump the lot of the from the table to the floor and they're going to bounce. My toddler can manhandle them, and they survive just fine. The biggest danger is them popping off the bases, but you have to work really hard to make that happen. 

I do think I'll do 1 or 2 more "character" type trees. I'm especially thinking about one tree growing over a dungeon entrance, maybe a gulthias tree? And the other I'm thinking off is more of an evil grandmother willow type tree with a face. We'll see if and when I get around to ever making those.

Stonehell: Sepulture Raiders

 Session 242 was played on 2/18/24

Morgana, Magic User (Rob)
Borumar, ½ Orc Thief (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter (Lanse)
Koltic, Cleric 7 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 5 (NPC)
Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)

Heading back north from the stepped pyramid, they check out the side passage to the east. The same glowing blue light from nowhere illuminates the 8 floating oblong smooth sarcophagi. Not finding an easy way to open them, the party leaves them alone after doing a bit of pushing and pulling to see if they’d react. They didn’t.

Heading west they find another tomb with floating sarcophagi,  of them open, and a pair of pillars inscribed with weird symbols. Blotto goes to get a closer look and is attacked by a pair of 8’ tall, 4 armed mummies. Koltic is afraid of them, and keeps back. Morgana launches magic missiles, while Borumar jumps back and shoots one with his bow, killing it. Nick and Lor’Koth take out the other before it can do any damage.

Blotto returns to the pillar, and as best as he can tell, it’s some sort of math or maybe magic. Morgana isn’t too concerned about it at the moment, and they press on, coming to a 4 way intersection. Borumar uses his potion of treasure finding. Feeling the pull and checking their maps… they figure that it’s probably pointing to the Casino treasure vault.

Heading south from the intersection a large 4 armed iron statue that looks rather like the mummies they recently fought attacks, hitting Borumar hard. Borumar stabs it with his daggers, and they get stuck. Morgana blasts it with Magic Missiles, and it falls. Borumar pulls his daggers free.

The passage has a pair of side passages that quickly open up into smaller tombs with 4 sarcophagi each. Continuing to the south they come to a T intersection. To the east is a psychedelic room full of swirling colors and sounds. To the west is a room that looks like it’s sweltering due to the wavy air within, but is actually the same temp as the rest of the Sepulture.

Gains:
Kills:  Kion Mummies, Kion Iron Statue
Losses:

Stonehell: Hail Hydra!

Session 241 was played on 2/4/24

Morgana, Magic User (Rob)
Borumar, ½ Orc Thief (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter (Lanse)
Koltic, Cleric 7 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 5 (NPC)
Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)

The party pauses for a moment to let Koltic heal a little from being set on fire, then continue south. The sad looking doors fall open with a loud crash. A long hallway continues to the south, and is still lit by the weird omnipresent blue light. 2 side passages split off to either side, but the party continues to the south where the hall opens into a large room dominated by a black stepped pyramid flanked by a pair of pillars. Climbing the pillars they see 2 small pillars on the top of the pyramid. They climb up to the top, and see an iris hatch on the top of the pyramid. The 2 small pillars shift when pushed down, causing the pyramid to rumble slightly, and the iris to open and close. Within the pyramid the party can see movement.

A hydra begins to emerge from the hole! Morgana quickly drops an ice storm inside the pyramid, and the rest of the party attack it, killing it as the lift shoves the now still corpse of the undead hydra onto the top of the pyramid. Trophies are collected, and the interior is searched, revealing a tidy treasure.

Gains: pile of coins, weird alien jewelry
Kills: diedra
Losses:

Stonehell: Eye Saw That!

Session 240 was played on 1/28/24

Morgana, Magic User (Rob)
Borumar, ½ Orc Thief (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter (Lanse)
Koltic, Cleric 7 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 5 (NPC)
Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)

The dusty halls of the Sepulchure of Kion are lit with a soft blue light with no discernable source. A wide hallway extended south, and side passages extended to either side and ended in a pair of double doors blocking passage to the south. Ahead of them was a large pillar that reached to the ceiling, and was covered in regular scooped out circular depressions, with a smaller hole in the middle. 3 of the holes had 1’ diameter eyeballs looking out apparently sightlessly. Morgana cast invisibility on Borumar and he snuck around the pillar, and checked out the rest of the chamber. He returns to Morgana and suggests poking one with his 10’ pole. Morgana decides to fireball the pillar instead. Once the blast, flames, and smoke clear, the pillar is blackened, and the 3 eyeballs have popped.

The party continues south to the once impressive double doors, but time has been cruel to their oxidized surface. While looking at the doors, the party misses a silent eyeball floating into the chamber from one of the side passages. It blasted Koltic with a red beam that set him on fire! Moragana hits it with Magic Missiles while Blotto strikes it with his fishing polearm, causing it to pop. The 3 amigos put Koltic out.

Gains:
Kills: 4 Floating Eyes
Losses:

Stonehell: Where's the Sepulchure of Kion?

Session 239 (part 2) was played on 12/31/23

Morgana, Magic User (Rob)
Borumar, ½ Orc Thief (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter (Lanse)
Koltic, Cleric 7 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 5 (NPC)
Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)

After resting and checking the Hermitages archives for any info on the Sepulchure of Kion, the party heads out to find the Scintillating Orb. They take a wrong turn and end up poling around the lost rooms, and get surprised by a Black Pudding that manages to hit Aroon and Koltic. Morgana zaps it with some Magic Missiles, which does nothing but split it in 2. The party runs, not sure what to do with it. Borumar chucks some flaming oil at the closest one.

Continuing to explore around the lost rooms they return to the giant stone hemisphere. Morgana tries on the ring and touches it, but that has no effect. They spend some time investigating the stone hemisphere, and eventually discover that it isn’t attached to the floor, and with enough force, can be moved. Even better, there was a stash of treasure, including some magic leather armor and a shield!

They take the treasure back to the Hermitage, and then get better directions, pay the minotaurs toll for passing through their territory, and enter the Sepulchure of Kion!

Gains: bunch of coin and gems, leather +2, shield +2
Kills:
Losses: 300gp to the minotaurs